The benefits of renovating nobody tells you about

By Tegan Sapwell| 1 year ago

It's dusty, but it's rewarding

When my husband and I first clapped eyes on our renovator's delight all those years ago, it seemed so romantic. Take a run-down worker's cottage, splash some paint around, and transform into our dream home.

Easy, right? Oh, and fun.

With my newborn in tow, sleep-deprived, hormonal, and with bad case of ‘Block Fever’, before I knew it we’d signed up, and become proud owners of… well… a total dump.

Fast forward five years and I never could’ve imagined I’d still be living on a construction site. That my kids would grow up living on a construction site. (OK, it sounds a little dangerous but believe me, they had the best sand pit out of anyone.)

Yes, my husband and I are renovation lifers. We chose to stay in our home during an extensive reno, and as a result we’ve basically been camping for five years. And we are, it appears, a dying breed.

WATCH: How to renovate a property for a profit.

Previous generations thought nothing of it. I grew up in a house with a bathroom exposed to the elements. My in-laws would save up every week to buy a new door. I have friends whose parents have been renovating the family home for decades.

We’re now following in their dusty footsteps.

Naturally, along the way I’ve questioned whether it’s worth it. A freezing cold winter living in three rooms with two small kids nearly broke me.

Then there was the time we had an invasion of mice because you could drive a semi-trailer through the cracks in our floorboards.

And right now, because of a lack of cooking facilities, we’re subsisting on meals of questionable nutritional value – basically anything that’s microwavable or barbeque-able. Though if I’m honest, I probably couldn’t do much better with a proper kitchen.

But this whole journey was our choice, and as I’ve learned there are some surprising benefits.

Renovating isn't always as romantic as it sounds... (Getty Images)

For instance, we’ve gotten to know our neighbours well. That mostly came from having a front verandah that doubled as a laundry. I’d sit out the front most days, put on a load of washing and watch the kids play on the tiny patch of land we had that wasn’t under construction. The neighbours would take pity on me and stop for a chat.

I’ve also learned the art of patience. It came as a shock to me when I discovered construction doesn’t move at warp speed like it does on The Block. That’s right, out in the real world, it doesn’t matter how quickly you need those tiles. Unless you’ve mastered the art of time travel, you can’t get them from Shanghai to Perth in two hours.

Tackling one room at a time, one job at a time, has been frustrating - but it’s also been incredibly rewarding watching our ideas become reality.

Yes, renovating takes a lot of energy. It’s dusty, tiring and it’s always more expensive than you think. But at the end of it we’ll have exactly what we want in a home - and that’s pretty cool.

I can’t imagine what we’ll do with our free time when it’s done. It might just be time for another reno.